I.& I: ON BEING A FIRST-TIME GRAN – a journal, a memoir, and assorted rants
Today Esther and I. came over for the day. They’re off tomorrow to spend a few days with the philosopher’s folks in Cardiff, and we’re looking after their cat. If its last visit is anything to go by, far from lowering our blood-pressure by sitting on knees and letting itself be stroked, it will spend most of its time in Bruce’s study crouched in the slot between the sofa and the wall, moaning softly.
Esther arrived wearing it in its travel-bag, her bag of baby necessities over the other shoulder, the cat’s litter box in one hand and the baby in his car-seat in the other. She’s very slight, and I used to be far the stronger, but no more. Motherhood has developed her muscles. As for my muscles, don’t ask. Every time I give them a bracing workout, they complain like the insubordinates they’ve become.
The big news is, the boy can move! It’s not quite a crawl and not quite a bum-shuffle, and his legs are not yet fully under control, but the result, however ungainly, is movement; and soon, it’s clear, he’ll be zipping around. He’s particularly interested in hidden corners that he’s obviously been dying to investigate, but where no-one’s ever thought of putting him down (or where they’ve actively avoided putting him down, such as near wobbly standard lamps and low-lying plant-pots). He explored under the table, and also the rather unhygienic matting that covers our kitchen floor – areas that seem to me entirely without interest, but that clearly fascinate him, if only because until now he’s been able to view them only from a distance.
I.’s struggles, as he manoeuvred his way around, struck a painful chord. Both ends of life have problems with locomotion, the difference of course being that his will melt away as the months pass, while mine are increasingly likely to congeal. I always considered my legs dependable friends, but now they’re nothing but a litany of accidents waiting to happen. As for teeth … I. has yet to start the tooth saga, but unless he’s uncommonly lucky it’ll continue as it begins, painfully. A stunning example of design failure, I remarked to my dentist the last time we met, as he excavated, with difficulty, a discontinued nerve. He looked horrified, and assured me, in shocked tones, that on the contrary, teeth are an absolutely brilliant design. Hah! The truth is that the biblical span, though less and less accurate as a measure of how long we’re all likely to live, nonetheless retains all its gloomy relevance when it comes to body part decay.
So what with one thing and another, I can’t help wondering how long I’ll be around to share I.’s life. Shall I see him start school? Probably, unless I’m rather unlucky. Both my grandmother and my mother died when they were around my age – I’m already older than my grandmother, and in a year’s time I shall be older than my mother. But I tell myself I’ve had an easier life. And when he’s a surly, overgrown teenager? Maybe. I hope so.
Further than that I don’t look. Bruce says he’s going to live forever (though how he squares this with his desire to be buried in a long barrow, with grave goods, he doesn’t explain). I wish neither of these: all I ask – and it’s not negligible! – is to leave the stage while I’m still recognisable as me.
Originally written Monday, 7 October 2013